Life offers mysteries and miracles everyday—you are just too blind to see them.

~Ogma, God of Eloquence and Inspiration

Fire Spitters weren’t the main problem. Those little bastards were pure chaos but unimaginably stupid. Knowing what he did now, Crow felt that might be a side effect of inbreeding. Either way, as long as he knew they were present, they were easy to deal with.

The problem with them out here was that something nastier existed closer to the monolith. Well, that was the major problem with the Daemons. But the biggest issue was the rations would last another week—two if Crow skipped meals.

His food only lasted this long because Nin ate worms, and just thinking about it made Crow’s face scrunch in revulsion. After climbing out of their love nest, he looked at his charred clothes and sighed.

Nin looked at Crow’s forlorn look and burst out laughing.

“You and clothes must have had some serious enmity in your previous life. There are clothes made for cultivators that are harder to destroy, plus some can even repair themselves.”

“Pfft,” Crow snorted. “You think that’ll help? Could it stop a damned door from taking them off my body?”

Nin couldn’t stop laughing. It was a sad truth that this guy had a serious problem keeping his clothes. Since she’d joined up with him, she witnessed at least a dozen occurrences where his clothes were taken, burned, destroyed, or some other craziness. It was unfathomable.

“Maybe you are… umm, cursed,” Nin mumbled the last part, forgetting that he really was cursed.

“Is there such a curse?” Crow looked into Nin’s golden irises and felt the serpentine pupil was unique and beautiful.

“Well, there are those that specialize in curses, and they could at least check.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s not a curse, and if it is, it’d be from a god.”

“A trickster!”

“Yeah, maybe.” Crow nodded in agreement. It really couldn’t be discounted because he couldn’t call it bad luck or coincidence anymore. However, that was something for him to take care of another time. “Lily’s back.”

Sure enough, the little Fae princess flew into the cave and did not look away as Crow got dressed. The little Fae’s hungry eye made him a little self-conscious, and he rushed to put his clothes on. It didn’t go unnoticed, and she just smiled at his shyness.

“How was it?” Crow asked. All three of them had debated their next steps, and Lily suggested she scout the terrain. They weren’t far from the monolith, and the trees had thinned and left them little cover to proceed forward. Her plan was to wait for dark and fly high to check to see if she could spot a good way forward.

After a moment’s thought she, smoothed out the ground and then jabbed a stick into the center. It was apparent that it represented the monolith. Then she drew an irregular shape around it, with a line trailing away from one side and carrying off on the other, which looked like a river.

“Is that a lake?” Crow asked while Lily nodded. Then she flew around her drawing and placed a small rock down. Pointing at the rock and Crow simultaneously, he understood it was the cave where they were currently hiding. But then she put a dozen more rocks, and except for the forest, they practically surrounded the first one she placed. These stones were even along the shore of the lake. “Are those supposed to be hills like this one?”

Lily nodded but then put the backs of her tiny fists against her forehead and raised up her pointer fingers like little horns. Baring her teeth in a feral growl, she danced around the air like a mischievous imp. Crow and Nin, despite the situation, couldn’t help but laugh at how she mimicked the Daemons. It wasn’t really a funny position to be in, but Lily’s antics were both serious and humorous. Her ability to communicate improved daily.

“Can we clear out those nests?” Crow asked as he watched her place a few more different landmarks. He was staring at her makeshift map and felt the inkling of a plan. “Actually, is this river flowing toward or away from the lake?” Lily pointed at the monolith. “Did you see anything in the water? Or anything along the river that might be dangerous?”

Lily tapped her lips and then sighed. Her hands went up like walls along the river, and she placed more rocks on the line she made. Not sure what to do next, the little Fae put her hand flat above the line that marked the river and moved along it toward the lake. While she did that, her hand rocked back and forth hard where those rocks were, and then her hand pointed straight at the ground before finishing on smoothly into the lake.

“Rapids and a waterfall?” Crow asked, feeling his right eyebrow arching upward. There was a small raft inside his Vortex Pin, but it was something left behind by the Dullahan. It would be large enough to fit them both—he didn’t bother counting Lily since she could fly. But with the river that rough, it was dangerous even without beasts present.

Worse was that it sounded like the river had carved a canyon through the rocky terrain. If something went wrong, it was likely Crow wouldn’t escape the river’s tumultuous rage. Unsure what to do, his eyes flickered back and forth between the river and the dozens of Daemon nests that surrounded them.

“Let’s hear it, you two. Which do you think is safer? The river or the Daemons? Wait! Is that water safe to drink?”

The Fae’s head nodded vigorously, and after thinking for a second, she pointed at the river. Letting him know that she voted for the river.

Crow looked over at the dragon, who was still looking at the makeshift map. “Nin?”

“I’m not sure. There is no doubt I’d survive the river, but even with the martial body cultivation you use, your body is still too weak. I don’t like putting my life in the hands of fate and would rather fight.”

It was a typical Nin response. As a dragon, she was aggressive, arrogant, and possessive. Crow knew the reason she said what she did was because of him. To her dragon mind, he was her possession and wouldn’t allow anything to take what belonged to her.

“You can’t put it that way. I’m not putting my life in fate’s hands, but yours,” Crow smiled and patted her on the head.

“Damn you! Stop treating me like a puppy,” Nin growled and slapped his hand away. Lily found it hilarious and was rolling on the ground, laughing and kicking her feet. “You think I won’t eat you, little princess?”

Nin’s nostrils flared and expelled smoke while her golden eyes smoldered. Lily crawled through the air and sniffed everything around her like a hound. Neither of them could keep a straight face and burst out laughing shortly after. Crow could only shake his head at their antics.

“River it is,” Crow said, interrupting their playtime.

“Well, at least you are talking like a man again. Fine, the river it is. Lily, lead the way. Hopefully, we can reach it before the sun rises.”

Lily guided them along a path that cut back into the Fireheart Oak forest, but that was to avoid one of the Daemon nests. They paused to take a breather and observe the Daemon’s camp. Other than hundreds of Fire Spitters, there were at least a dozen of those worm mounts. The Bodach Glas were not their riders.

Instead, these things were worse, but only because of their intelligence. It wasn’t even their long snout or skinny tails that gave them away. Quite a few Daemons had those features, especially since they were corrupted by the blood of a dragon or serpent. The red caps, cloaks, and masks that these Daemons wore gave them away immediately. Crow had to admit seeing them in person, they looked dapper. Those hats and cloaks were high quality and well designed.

“What are those?” Nin asked.

“They are the Far Darrig or commonly called Ratmen. They aren’t all that evil, just can’t help themselves from playing tricks. Before they were corrupted, they were part of the Lucharacháin, which are small Fae races. The Far Darrig were once a race of the Lavellan, which are peaceful rodent-like people. The Ratmen are like our Rootless, outcasts that turned against their own people. Under the red cloak, hat, and mask is the furry face and body of a rat. Which is a vile name that the Lavellan gives to their traitors.”

“If they aren’t as evil as you say, why are they with the Daemons?”

“Far Darrig are Daemons, but the outward changes aren’t all that different from their uncorrupted counterparts. According to what I’ve read, the Lavellan are the most mysterious of all the Lucharacháin. So other than knowing there are several races of rodents among them, we know little else. However, they theorize that the Lavellan are highly resistant to corruption, which is why the Far Darrig weren’t fully turned. After Caorthannach was defeated and sent back to the underworld, the Ratmen kept breeding and untwisting their corrupted nature.”

“But—”

“Hold on,” Crow laughed as he lectured her on the history of the Draoidh and Fae. “Just because they aren’t necessarily evil, don’t get sentimental. They are vicious, smart, and never show mercy or empathy. I may not know much about the Lavellan, but the Far Darrig have a long history of crimes that makes them deserving of genocide. Their only saving grace seems to be that they still show some sentiment toward the Lavellan.”

Nin nodded. She knew nothing about the Fae and the Draoidh except the surface level and what she’d picked up while traveling with Crow. Until Nin left with Crow, her father had sheltered and hid her away from the world. Although she was a dragon, there was a pure naivete about her that attracted Crow. It was why he agreed to bond with her in the first place.

“Where do these Lavellan live?” Nin asked an hour later after they had dodged back into the forest to sneak around the Ratmen and Fire Spitters.

“No one knows. We’ll probably never come across one. Even in the era of the Draoidh, they were mysterious and magical creatures. But we’ll definitely come across some of the Lucharacháin. Maybe we already have because most don’t look much different from you and me—just shorter. The reason I think we’ll see them is that the short races are very industrious. Many of them pursue the Scholarly Talents, and it wouldn’t surprise me if most of the masters are Lucharacháin.”

Nin couldn’t wait to join an academy. Crow promised her that he’d spend a few years at one—once he resolved some grievances. Namely, saving his mother and helping the Song Sisters resolve their issues.

Because of the Far Darrig, Crow decided to push into the forest more and detour from their original route. The little jerks excelled at setting traps, and they were unnaturally cruel, so it wasn’t worth the risk. That delayed them, so by the time they reached the river, the sun had already risen. It was still low in the sky, and the heat wasn’t unbearable yet.

Seeing the majestic body of water, he could only stare in awe. They approached the river where one of the waterfalls pounded down from a height of thirty meters.

Mist sprayed their faces, and Crow didn’t care about decorum as he stripped off all his clothes and ran to jump in the water. It’d been so long since he’d bathed, and the heat from the forest and sun left him sticky all the time—not to mention his, uh, other activities with a particular dragon.

Before he could jump into the large pool over water, it churned, and something pale and as big as a cow surged upward. All Crow saw was its open maw and stumbled backward, trying to get away.

“Dammit!” Crow roared, feeling death’s breath hitting him in the face—dying to the smell of that thing’s putrid spittle left him offended and indignant. “I refuse to die to your halitosis.”